Understanding health insurance can be tricky. Who hasn’t stressed about whether their insurance covers this surgery or that test?

Now that the Affordable Care Act is rolling out, it is even more important that Americans understand the health care industry and how the new law will affect them.

To encourage women to learn more about the Affordable Care Act and the health insurance industry, Hager Sharp Inc. and Palladian Partners created an infographic that earned them top honors in the Best Infographic category of PR Daily’s 2013 Digital PR Awards.

The infographic also aimed to expose women to the five preventive messages of National Women’s Health Week and drive traffic to the Affordable Care Act website.

The teams at Hager Sharp and Palladian Partners didn’t want this infographic to simply broadcast information—they wanted it to tell a story. To do this, they divided the graphic into three sections, or acts. Act 1 describes health problems specific to women. Act 2 describes how the Affordable Care Act addresses them, and Act 3 lists a few ways women can lead healthier lives.

The graphic is clean, organized, and easy to follow. The text is devoid of medical or insurance jargon, and simple to understand.

To promote the graphic, Hager Sharp and Palladian Partners shared it on various social media channels, and posted it to the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services’ page on www.hhs.gov and the National Women’s Health Week website.

The graphic reached more than 30,000 people on Facebook, received more than 1 million impressions on Twitter, and ultimately increased traffic to the Affordable Care Act website.